


you're the end for me

by alsahm



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Akechi Goro Lives, Content Warnings By Chapter, Flash Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-06-23 11:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 8,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15605721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alsahm/pseuds/alsahm
Summary: flashfic. ren and akechi study, flirt, and live in moments. table of contents in chapter one! / 19: goro vs the grid





	1. contents

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes i need to just expel ideas with low stakes... sorry they're so short. there's a chance i expand some later, but for now these are mostly stress relief :')

 

**CANON/POST-CANON (AKECHI GORO LIVES)**  
  
---  
  
[you're lucky you're hot](http://archiveofourown.org/works/15605721/chapters/36233547)

| 

prompt: "'you're lucky you're hot' or 'you're lucky you're cute'"  
  
[put a little love in it?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/15605721/chapters/36233727)

| 

prompt: "akeshu but like with the summer hangout where you can choose to put more love in the curry"  
  
[rain-spattered lenses](http://archiveofourown.org/works/15605721/chapters/36233772)

| 

prompt: "Shuake stuck in the rain!"  
  
[sneezes and aches](http://archiveofourown.org/works/15605721/chapters/36283938)

| 

sickfic, 1/3  
  
[emeto and hate](http://archiveofourown.org/works/15605721/chapters/36303486)

| 

sickfic, 2/3  
  
[status effect](http://archiveofourown.org/works/15605721/chapters/36303690)

| 

sickfic, 3/3  
  
[rotten taste](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15605721/chapters/36362442)

| 

prompt: "goro forgets his lactaid pills on an ice cream date and keeps trying to end the date early"  
  
[summit](http://archiveofourown.org/works/15605721/chapters/36807633)

| 

goro + mount everest | _discussions of death_  
  
[jetlag](http://archiveofourown.org/works/15605721/chapters/37298180)

| 

ren has jetlag.  
  
[i know i'm not the center of the universe, but](http://archiveofourown.org/works/15605721/chapters/37325930)

| 

an alternate build-up to an alternate rank 10. akechi deals, and akira's dick is still hard.  
  
[are you now or have you ever been](http://archiveofourown.org/works/15605721/chapters/38245901)

| 

**bad end** | akechi is haunted.  
  
[whimper](http://archiveofourown.org/works/15605721/chapters/38395184)

| 

prompt: "Write an instruction on how to make Akechi cry."  
  
[dark stun](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15605721/chapters/40511759)

| 

alternate take on "dark sun" anime  
  
 

**ALTERNATE UNIVERSE**  
  
---  
  
[game](http://archiveofourown.org/works/15605721/chapters/36233976)

| 

**hogwarts** | 5th year | everyone's an ass on game day  
  
[damn tho we hot](http://archiveofourown.org/works/15605721/chapters/36234186)

| 

**hogwarts** | 6th year | in which there is a boggart  
  
[byzantium](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15605721/chapters/36485301)

| 

**carnival** | the carnival is in town for a week, and goro somehow swindles a free ticket for every date | _sexual content_  
  
[bedtime](http://archiveofourown.org/works/15605721/chapters/38020220)

| 

**generically domestic** | director’s cut blackred akeshu got married in maui suburbia and adopted twin daughters  
  
 


	2. post-canon → you're lucky you're hot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> autumn 20XY | @ichorue: "akeshu; 'you're lucky you're hot' or 'you're lucky you're cute'"

So Ren is actually more of a dumbass than originally suspected. Albeit exceptionally good at cheating.

Also at distracting himself and his "tutor" from the math they're supposed to be working on.

Goro carefully extracts his leg from Ren's touch and smiles, the practiced idol mask he knows Ren doesn't like. "We won't make much progress if you don't focus, you know."

"It's not like they'll take me anyway." Even without the cheating and the general academic mediocrity.

Ren drums his fingers on the table and gazes listlessly at _Sayuri_. This, Goro knows, is just about the last thing Ren wants to do, but here he is anyway—studying for an entrance exam he would've taken a year ago if not for interfering gods and shitty men, when all his friends have already graduated high school and moved on to better things.

Goro can't deny it, either.

"That's not the be-all end-all," he says instead, and because he knows Ren likes a stroked ego: "You're lucky you're hot."

Ren smirks, the cocky Joker grin that is his true glee. "Yeah?"

Goro rolls his eyes, tucking a stray strand of hair behind his ear. "You act like that's news." Then he turns back to the textbook. "Come on, then. Stop trying to seduce me and reduce some of these fractions instead."


	3. canon summer → put a little love in it?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> summer 20XX | @lazys0n: "akeshu but like with the summer hangout where you can choose to put more love in the curry"

Akechi normally shows up in the evening, so it's a surprise when Ren saunters downstairs with uncombed hair, groggy eyes, and PJs and accidentally spots the carefully pruned pleasant brown hair. Smooth as he is, Ren _would_ sneak back up immediately, but of course Morgana yelps in surprise and signals their presence.

Sojiro raises one eyebrow to communicate his distaste; Akechi—gaze searching, cute mouth parting—smiles, says, "Good morning, sleepyhead."

Ren raises one hand in greeting, then swerves to retrieve his toothbrush from the attic.

Five minutes later, he's equipped with clean shirt, glasses, and minty-fresh breath when he slides into Akechi's booth with a plate of curry as though they do it every day. All they're missing in this illusion of domestic bliss is the forehead kiss. They have a cat ready and everything.

"Summer work on the first week of vacation?" Morgana is in Ren's lap, where he knows he will be automatically petted. He's peering over the table; Akechi's spread out textbooks and papers and is currently frowning at graph paper with a pen in hand. There's an untouched coffee cooling beside him. "I guess I wouldn't expect less from a guy like him, though."

"I hope you don't mind that I've nested here so early," Akechi says without looking up. "Unfortunately, my detective work often interferes with my studies, so I don't have the luxury of using summer vacation for its intended purpose."

"That sucks," says Ren, who only studies when Morgana or Makoto physically make him. He's pretty sure Kawakami has stacked his Japanese grade, actually.

"It is quite exhausting," Akechi admits, and circles a result with finality, then shuts his textbook and carefully tucks it away. He pulls his coffee closer for an experimental sip and does his best to pretend it isn't too bitter. "But we deal with what we are dealt, no?"

No, we don't. Ren moves Morgana from his lap, gets up, and reaches behind the counter for some packets of sugar. When Akechi laughs at himself but thanks Ren it's grating, but at least the boy pours one out and seems satisfied. It's hard to look away when Akechi is, even for a moment, sincere.

"You know," says Ren, before his brain can tell him to chill, "I have these DVDs upstairs I was supposed to return like 2 months ago that I still haven't watched."

"Oh?" Akechi is interested; Ren can tell in the way his eyes gain some of the soul that school sucks away. "Do I sense a proposal?"

Morgana, now bounding away: "Ewwww."

Ren kicks him, and wonders if he can locate a fan. "Sure."


	4. post-canon → rain-spattered lenses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @Nyahflorela: "Shuake stuck in the rain!"

Exciting discovery: Goro needs glasses.

Check that off Ren's basic-fetishes-I-didn't-even-realize-I-had list. Is he doing Goro a disservice without his specs, or does it only work if you actually need them?

He licks his lips, hands clasped behind his back as he makes way for Goro to come outside. "This why you wanted to cancel?"

"Of course not." Goro smiles like he's swallowed a lime, closing the door behind him; he really must have awful vision if he chose Ren's merciless bullying over temporary blindness.

Either that or Ren's mug is worth it.

He's trying really hard not to swipe them off Goro's face and check the damage for himself; only a year of others doing the same to him holds him back, so all he does is poke them up the bridge of Goro's nose and say, "Liar."

Sometimes, when Goro smiles, you can almost see the steam rising from his ears. "Well! Shall we be off?"

Their destination for the evening is Shibuya's theater, for whatever movie billed sounds least disappointing. Goro has a knack for escapism and spends most of it engrossed enough that Ren's snark is lost on him, and he doesn't notice when Ren curls up and falls asleep, content enough with the warmth of his company.

It's raining by the time they step out, a torrential Tokyo welcome for which neither Ren nor Goro are prepared. Ren puts a hand out from under the shelter and feels drops so hard they sting, then turns and offers a toothed, "Make a run for it?"

Goro pockets his phone—apparently, it offered no helpful prediction—and shrugs off his jacket. "Come on."

Ren's laugh butterflies out of him, "For real?", but Goro's already holding it up so he's no choice but to take the other end and hold it like a tarp above them. They run, then, and people are definitely staring because they look so stupid in their nice shoes and their alright clothes, two dumb kids two paces away from tripping into each other and a faceful of mud, and honestly the jacket's not even working . They manage to slide into the Underground Walkway and Ren lets go of the jacket, and he supposes they're not as soaked as they could be.

Meanwhile, Goro is glaring at Ren. "I can't see," he says, sighing, and takes off his glasses, which presumably doesn't help—now he's squinting between Ren and the specs, annoyed. "You wouldn't happen to have a clean cloth, would you?"

"Sure," says Ren, and opens his palm for the glasses. Then he blows on them, rubs at the lenses with his shirt, and sticks them back on Goro's face, smiling with the grace of a practiced idol.

"Oh," says Goro, nose scrunched in the tiniest display of public disgust. "How resourceful."

"You're welcome," says Ren, pleased.


	5. hogwarts → game

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 5th year | everyone's an ass on game day

Goro can't find his broom. He knows exactly where he left it and where it's gone but of course he still can't  _find_ it, mostly because he can't find god-damned  _Amamiya_ , who waltzed into the fifth year Slytherin boys' dorm yesterday and spent the night but disappeared before morning, taking more than his stupid glasses and his sultry smirk on exeunt.

He should've known this would happen. Goro wouldn't put it past Amamiya to have been planning this all year, carefully cultivating a relationship with the Slytherins' now most-loathed prefect to call on when convenient—or this: to choose the night before the Hufflepuff match for a midnight rendezvous, to whisper  _good luck_ , and then to steal Goro’s Yajirushi and account for  _Accio_.

Now it's thirty minutes to the match and Goro hasn't had breakfast and the entire team is scouring the castle for him, all muttering rotten things about fucking  _Akechi_ and how if Amada weren’t in the infirmary right now they could finally just kick his half-blood ass off the team and be done with it.

The Empress’s ghost scowls at him on the fourth floor corridor; none of Hogwarts’s not-so-dearly-not-so-departed have taken much of a liking to him. But Goro smiles pleasantly until she passes by, then kicks a suit of armor, hard.

It kicks back.

Goro yelps, barely stifling a curse.

“Your fault Slytherin’s lost the cup ere it’s even started, innit?”

No magic in the corridors, Niijima is always keen to remind them at their meetings, and yet Goro is so good at Transfiguration and also so desperate, and the halls are empty for everyone else finding seats at the pitch. Scowling, he sticks his wand under what would be the suit’s nose. “Someone in this damn castle has to know where Amamiya is, and unless you want to be an ameoba for the rest of your pathetic existence, you’ll help me find them.”

“An ami-what?”

“Just help me!”

Even as he says it he knows this is hopeless. Amamiya is nowhere public—not in the Great Hall, not in the library, not in any of the bathrooms’—and he won’t be in the Hospital Wing until Goro is through with him, surely, and he can’t exactly check common rooms of which he doesn’t know the locations. He’s considering now that Ren is literally just following him around for a shitty, giggly goose-chase, but  _surely_ he isn’t toting Goro’s broom.

“You know what, never mind,” he says to the suit, and turns as it remembers to curse him and damn his Muggle mother, etc. Losing is not an option, neither to Ren nor to Hufflepuff, and Goro’s had a last-ditch idea that better work, given it’ll tip his hand.

The Ren that has taken unfortunate residence in his head smiles sweet and suggests,  _Can’t you use one of the school brooms?_

Goro pictures a nice Muggle brawl, the kind at which Ren will be useless. How good he’ll look with bruises is both a bonus and another source of frustration.

Right. To the Owlery, then. With any luck his teammates will have given up and trudged to the pitch by now, resigned to have their Beaters amp it up in compensation for their absent or off-kilter Keeper.

Meanwhile, in watching the birds or with his own heightened senses, he’ll know.

He does it at a run: Race up the stairs and into his dark, heavy wings, and he dives just out of view as sleepy owls give him angry, territorial looks. Whatever, won’t be long now; Goro can already smell him.

In some ways Ren is like Loki, an eerie, laughing stealth about him. He appears at the stairs all rumpled clothes and dark cuddled hair, and glances around, pressing his glasses into place as if to see better. Goro clenches his talons, swoops in, and snatches at his hood.

“What the—Hey, no, stop!”

Ren claims he hates heights, and his shouts as he swats at Goro, tugging him to the edge of the tower, are so, so good. It takes longer than Ren will probably ever admit to get away from Goro’s sharp beak and talons, and his robes don’t escape unscathed.

He’s still breathing hard, wildly searching his pockets, when Goro turns back and shoves his wand between Ren's eyes.

Ren looks up, blinking rapidly. He’s surprised. Good. “What—Wait, you—”

“My broom,” says Goro. “Now.”

He’ll arrive at the pitch five minutes into the game, Yajirushi tucked under his arm. It will be Hufflepuff 50-0, and Slytherin will steal an awful, last-minute victory, and then—as Amada spits that’s  _it_ , fucking  _Akechi_ you’re  _done_ —Goro will see Ren give one of the Hufflepuff Beaters—Takamaki, was it—a high-five.


	6. hogwarts → damn tho we hot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 6th year | in which there is a boggart

Amamiya takes Akechi with both hands, a smooth, gentle motion which ends with him on one knee. A brief reprieval by the right hand as Amamiya draws his wand, twirling it deftly to conjure a silver band, and Akechi’s hand covers his mouth as he tears up and shakes his head and nods and Amamiya is smiling so sweet, laughing like the snitch’s wings that threaten to erupt from both their chests, and they are the picture of happiness.

The real Goro, teeth sunk in his bottom lip and tasting copper, is not so content. Beside him the real Ren is frowning, toying with the original of Amamiya's wand, squeezing Goro’s right hand with his left as though afraid it will escape.

Their task this detention has been to clear out a doxy infestation in a cluster of unused classrooms on the fourth floor. They’ve been at it for days; Ren has been calling them dates, and, excepting that Morgana has taken to accompanying them, Goro decided to accept the appellation.

Now Goro pulls away, back turned on the boggart. “Seriously? This is your idea of a nightmare?”

“Isn’t mine,” Ren says, wetting his lips. He stuffs his wand in his pocket, scoops his scuttling cat over one shoulder, and takes two pointed steps back. A flourish, and then a stage master’s, “Senpai.”

A  _challenge_.

Scowling, Goro says, “Do I look  _afraid_  to you?”

Ren shrugs, then jerks his head toward the boggart. It’s shifting, and when it next takes shape it’s almost the same as before, except that the false Akechi is gone and the second Amamiya, the one with the love in his eyes and no glasses to hinder its glow, is easing himself to his feet and turning to Goro with a malicious grin.

“Oh,” he says, “but you felt that one, didn’t you?”

Goro blinks, heart clenching.

Oh—Oh, no.

“No,” he says firmly, raising his wand. “I did  _not_ —”

“But it’s cute, isn’t it?” Amamiya cuts in as he ghosts closer, and Goro is moving backwards, and Amamiya says something but Goro doesn’t hear him because there’s Ren's powerful, terrifying laugh, “Too bad it’ll never happen. You seriously think any of this is  _real_?”

Ren, somewhere in the back of his head, or maybe from behind him. “Goro—Shit, Goro, look at me, it’s not real—”

“But,” Amamiya has him, pressed against the wall and shaking like a first year, breath heavy as the heartbeat in his throat, “how could you ever think that someone like me could actually care about fucking  _Akechi_?”

How indeed? How, after nearly a decade of bouncing back and forth in Muggle foster care, after six years of Slytherin and of being the obnoxious know-it-all teacher’s pet, after two years playing mudblood and three breathing the same underground air as Daichi Shido, did Goro fucking Akechi manage to steal love from anyone? And why  _did_ he? When Ren leaves him Goro is done; he’s given too much to Ren's silver tongue.

Suddenly Ren blasts Amamiya off him and Goro’s sliding to the floor, and then the boggart is shifting again, but what it settles on Goro doesn’t see before Ren has cast “ _Riddikulus_!” and left them blinking at a mermaid—except the top half is the fish and the bottom the human. Even as he schools his pulse to normal, Goro snorts, and the boggart disappears into nothing.

Morgana bounds to where it was and hisses, as if to ward it further. Ren's has always been one of the most obnoxious cats Goro has ever met.

“Hey,” Ren says, and offers him a hand. He is warmth where the boggart was not and Goro swallows and looks away before he takes it, licking away the last of the blood from his lips. “Sorry," Ren continues, watching. "Only I figured that first one out too late.”

“What?”

“Morgana,” Ren says, and glances sideways at his pet.

Morgana preens.

Goro is getting better at identifying Ren's sarcasm, but this is one of those times where it’s still up in the air.

“You’re… kidding, right? Your cat has a boggart?”

Ren frowns. “Kneazle. Well, mostly. Can’t you tell the difference?”

“That’s illegal,” Goro says immediately, and then remembers with whom it is he’s speaking. It makes sense, though; until now, Goro attributed the disturbing texture of Morgana’s fur to Ren never giving him a bath. “Alright, fine. Your  _kneazle_ has a boggart? And—And it’s us getting married.”

Morgana meows as if in response. Ren nods as if in agreement. “Engaged, technically.”

“And this is the part where you tell me you can speak kneazle,” says Goro. He’s suddenly  _so_  tired.

Ren smirks, lacing their fingers together with mirth. “This is the part where my kneazle needs therapy for perceived parental abandonment.”


	7. post-canon → sneezes and aches [1/3]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1/3, maybe. this is for renn who is hopefully taking care of herself

Ren sneezes once and his boyfriend fucks off to nowhere for the next two weeks.

"You're supposed to take care of me," he complains into the speakerphone laid on his chest. One arm covers his eyes; if he presses down hard enough maybe his headache will fuck off, too, and then he can properly plan how to turn this situation around. He deserves cuddles, dammit.

Goro says clinically, "I'm afraid you're too hot for me. I would be far too distracted to administer proper care."

"Ohhhh, ha ha. I see what you did there. Too bad it backfired, I'm telling all my friends you said I'm hooooooot."

“However will I manage with that blemish upon my good name.” Goro is pretending he finds Ren’s increased clinginess unappealing. He is failing, because Ren knows he appreciates neediness and is selfishly amping it up, but in the end it won’t make a difference either way; Goro has utterly refused to appear at Leblanc until the strain has passed. “Drink plenty of fluids.”

Ren lets out a noncommittal groan that could indicate that he will or that he won’t or that he wants Goro to quench him. Goro is audibly unaffected, so he does it a few more times.

“Rest well,” decides Goro, soulless.

“You are so good to me,” wheezes Ren, earnest. He wishes he could steam out all the aches. “My head is pounding so bad I feel like my eyes’ll pop out.”

Silence. A pen scratch. Then: “Did you take a pill?”

“Yessir.”

“...Would it help if I read to you? You can close your eyes and have something on which to focus until you fall asleep.”

“Okay.”

“Just a moment,” Goro says, and Ren hears him ease out of his chair; obtain a drink; select a book and settle back in. Ren gets it, sure, the need to be safe and clean and in control of time, but he misses the human warmth and the beating heart. “I’m here.”

Ren rests.


	8. post-canon → emeto and hate [2/3]

Goro vomits once and his boyfriend won't leave him alone.

He brought a stuffed animal, apparently from Ann. He brought an overnight bag. He's making soup.

"Go away," Goro grumbles, drooping onto the kotatsu. His head weighs nothing and his throat is burning, fingers still made of pins and needles. He eyes the cup of ice Ren wordlessly set before him and sulks, knowing that it will help, unwilling to surrender.

Ren doesn't hear him; Goro's voice doesn't carry, and anyway Ren is calling Sakura-san about the soup. 

There is something so fucking wrong with Amamiya Ren. He cares so much it feels like a dream.

Goro's stomach doesn't revolt but he wishes it would, desperate for the adrenaline to escort him to the restroom where he can be snotty and choke on emotions in peace. Instead he reaches for the ice cup and pours some into his mouth, sucking on the shard quietly enough that he hopes Ren won't notice. Now it's not about losing; it's about not wanting to be seen.

("Leave," Goro tries again feebly, and Ren says, "Okay," and then doesn't; instead he brings the soup to the kotatsu, gently kisses his forehead before he sits, and then, never one for idle hands, teaches Goro's only stuffed toy to dance).


	9. post-canon → status effect [3/3]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it was contagious!!

This time Ren vomits. When Goro arrives he's groaning into Sakura-san's couch. 

Goro mutters into his hair, "I told you to leave me alone. Do you see?"

Ren is too exhausted for wit; his hands curl into Goro's clothes so tightly it's like they're the source of all life. "Please don't go away this time..." 

"Of course not," says Goro. He's both immobilized and immune.


	10. post-canon → rotten taste

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> @sichthys: goro forgets his lactaid pills on an ice cream date and keeps trying to end the date early

"Oh," realizes Ren, "you wanna share…?"

This is a weird situation. Normally when Goro wants something of Ren's he just takes it, be it his takoyaki or his bed or his lips. But now Goro—at whose suggestion they chose this date spot—has both politely declined the ice cream vendor's query and is smiling at Ren with no intention of putting his tongue anywhere.

"No, no," he says, waving away the thought with his typical theatrics and a crisp bill. "I apologize, Ren, but I had a late lunch; I don't believe I've room enough to indulge."

Goro's current Akechiism is ill-timed; Ren's ice cream is melting and he has no choice but to lick it into manageable shape with a resounding slurp. As they move aside for the next customer Goro melts, too, his waves of politeness dissipating when he glances mournfully at the kid's chocolate soft-serve bathed in an obscene number of rainbow sprinkles.

Ren frowns, detecting the self-loathing. Inquiring will possibly end their date early, though, so he just shoves his own cone in Goro's face and says, "Too much for me." 

Now Goro frowns. He blinks at the ice cream then to Ren and back, suspicion more pronounced than he probably intends. It's fair, considering Ren's transparency, but Ren banks on the fact that Goro enjoys indulging in superior responsibilities more than being correct.

Except Goro nudges them into a walk. "Perhaps I'd assist if you selected a flavor typically enjoyed by humans."

"Mint chocolate chip is godly," Ren agrees, and switches tactics: "You're disqualified as a judge, you haven't even tried it."

"I'll be sure to send the academy my cited dissertation on its complete lack of merit next my appetite allows." His mood is souring. Ren can tell in the set of his shoulders, and because there is literally always room for ice cream, especially for a prince of sweets. 

He takes a bite with his teeth. The cone is chocolate chip-flavored magic and the mood is not. To be frank: "Are you mad at me?"

Now Goro stops. "What? Of course not."

"You're upset.”

"I'm fine," Goro says. "I just—fine, I'll try your monstrosity—" and he leans into Ren's space and makes a face as he takes the smallest of bites, then retreats to announce, "Gross. How on-brand."

Ren laughs, satisfied.

(Later Goro will have misplaced his keys and Ren will find them in Goro's bag, even though Goro will swear he checked there already. The tiny canister will still be attached to them, empty except for a note that reads in Goro's messy script: _Refill Lactase!_ )


	11. carnival → byzantium

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the carnival is in town for a week, and goro somehow swindles a free ticket for every date

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am like... obsessed with ren wearing purple lipstick
> 
>  **warning** for sexual content in the first paragraph

Joker’s lips run along the length of him, staining what he likes in dark violet. He smells, absurdly, of coffee—which, in the future, when mingled with late autumn nights and the muffled din of a crowd, will give Goro the weirdest boner.

After, Joker says with a grin, “You’re just a fucking freak, aren’t you?”

Goro doesn't smile, wiping at his face with the back of his left hand. It, too, comes back purple. He says, “And you? I wonder how someone such as yourself came to join this merry a band."

Joker's tongue flicks at his mouth even as he realigns his mask. He hadn't taken it off and has still neither asked after nor offered a name. "Do I seem like I don't belong?"

"You said that, not me."

A laugh, then, from the same depths as his stagemaster’s voice. "That I did. I really do like you." 

It is so absurd that Goro only came to this man's show six days ago because of Ann's bailed date, unwittingly insulted him to his face, and—having caught enough of his attention with his bald tongue—found himself voluntold for the 'favorite act' from the seventh row. 

Now here he is one, two, and three free tickets later. He hasn't done his laundry. His sweat smells like popcorn. Yesterday, he showed Joker around town.

Tomorrow he's gone.

"Well!" Joker says, having reapplied his lip, and Goro _hates_ that, bites his tongue and draws blood. "Thank you kindly for your patronage. You're attending our last show tonight?"

"Don't I get a name, at least?"

"Joker," says Joker, who cackled so gleefully when Goro pulled that card from his deck, when Ann had been so awed. Goro stares, unimpressed, until Joker offers him a hand. "And for you! Akira."

As much bullshit as is everything else about him. 

"Akechi," says Goro anyway, and allows the assistance up.


	12. post-canon → summit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How strange to conquer Earth herself and still be so subject to her laws. The view from above.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> at some point in one of my other multi-chapters i was going to reference goro climbing mount everest... lots of **death related warnings** for this one 
> 
> [mood music](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jcV4220T484)

He calls Amamiya.

" _Akechi_?"

"Ren," he thinks he says, and from habit makes to comb through his unexposed hair with his free hand. He is heaving up here, standing above the entire world up here, and still from the pit of his stomach to the blue of his lips he feels so unalive. "Hi."

" _Hey_ ," Amamiya says now so distantly, and Goro can picture him, eyes creasing behind his frames, back to Leblanc's bar as he sinks to its floor, toys with an open seam of his apron. It makes Goro long suddenly for too-sweet coffee and November nights and all that which Ren's voice has conditioned in him and he shivers, gazing passively at the mountains at his feet.

Only minutes up here, nothing more, because as mere humans we must leave; so take your pictures and make your phone calls and your looks around, sir, and then, kindly, we will journey home.

How strange to conquer Earth herself and still be so subject to her laws. He made it here, didn't he? And he thought he might die, and there is still that possibility, and… he still doesn't care at all.

In more difficult moments on their trek some part of Goro imagined, without the consent of the rest of him, that despite his fear of heights, despite Goro not providing an explanation for his sudden departure, that Amamiya had joined him. Amamiya was praying in the valley. He was joking around at camp. He was one of the corpses frozen along the way.

He is cutting in and out, an amalgamation of the justifiably poor signal and Goro's lack of oxygen. Goro says without listening, "Ren. I… summited."

" _You what? Where_ are _you_?"

"Everest," he says. "The—the top."

"Mount _Everest_? _You're shitting me_?"

"I'll—there's pictures. I can—send them later. I—"

Wish I felt something.

Wish it made a difference.

Wish you were beside me.

"See you—soon?"


	13. post-canon → jetlag

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ya girl has [jetlag](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mt_4DDlJuzE) and her friends are in less accessible timezones now it's terrible. ren just got back though! we're exhausted.

On the futon Ren is fading, one arm stretched limply toward Goro’s desk. “Heyy...”

Goro is still scratching at his work with the fountain pen when he glances over and snorts. Even without Mona on his back, Ren would be immobile; his soft hair sits fluffed in his eyes and Ren is too miserably fatigued to tuck it away, blinking sleep rapidly out of his eyes as he is.

"Hello," Goro obliges. He allows fondness to seep in since Ren is too incapacitated to detect it.

"Hi. Come here."

"I'm working on this assignment, Ren. With the pen you were so kind to present to me."

Ren's head flops into the crook of his shoulder. His groan is muffled but livelier than one would expect, drawn out from his chest with what can only be interpreted as "Why are you so boriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing."

"Certainly am not," says Goro, but carefully rests the nib on its stand and swivels off the desk chair. Having walked over he crouches to the futon's height and nudges Ren, tucks the forbidding hair behind his ear. Ren squints at him feebly, mouth open with words he forgot to enunciate.

“Sleep,” Goro suggests.

"Nooo," he whines, "I wanna be awake when you are." Then, urgently: “I love you.”

"I know," says Goro, and presses a kiss to his forehead. "I missed you."


	14. rank 10 → i know i'm not the center of the universe, but

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _i know i'm not the center of the universe, but you keep spinnin' round me just the same._
> 
> an alternate build-up to an alternate rank 10. akechi deals, and akira's dick is still hard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this was originally posted 07 may 2017! 
> 
> this has a lot of the ideas that i've wanted to explore more in-depth since then, but in baby form, since this was my first p5 fic. sorry about that compulsive need to delete everything. i promise i'll just orphan next time.

Unanticipated: the late, chilly, two-hour walk home from the Diet Building to Yongen-Jaya, a mouthy cat in his bag and a boy clutching his shoulder. Futaba took the metro with Ryuji and the others but Morgana fiercely insisted he accompany Akira, voice wavering between genuine concern for and caution of Akira's current baggage.

And the boy? Untalkative. Light, for his stature, but exceptionally dependant for someone tangibly unwounded. And crying — a tormented, trembling hiccup that hovers just above his heart, staggered with a discordant, "Shit… shit… shit..."

"Man, is he gonna be sobbing all night?" Morgana whispers from Akira's other side, but Akira doesn't respond; more often than not Morgana will fill in his answers unprompted, and anyway, Akechi will hear him.

So they walk. Clinging to the shadows to mask both their faces, they exchange only the physical pressure of geographical guidance, hearts pounding with the knowledge of a mutual confidence.

* * *

He blinks at the interior, ostensibly unfamiliar in the dark. "Why did you bring me here?"

"You got somewhere else to go?" Akira shoulders past him to the restroom, creaking it open to wash his face. It stings, he thinks, but his guest sighs and footsteps ghost up the stairs; Akechi is somewhere between folding his cards or playing along—giving up or giving in—and for now Akira is content with that because he is alive.

He paper-towels himself off and heads for the attic he calls home. Akechi is slumped on the sofa, forehead held with his left hand, elbows on his knees and sticky hair in his face, back arched so violently it looks like he'll collapse on himself.

And. Well.

 _You could have left me_. _You could have just left me to die_.

It floats in the air with the dust, more prone to make eyes itch than Akira would like. He crouches to rummage through his things from home, not entirely sure for what he's looking until his hands find a bundle of clothes and he pulls, extracting a shirt he hasn't worn in six months and the pants in which he was first arrested.

Morgana nuzzles him in supportive warmth before disappearing downstairs.

Akira stands and drops the clothes on Akechi's head.

Akechi yelps and yanks them off, stares uncomprehendingly.

"It's still an attic," Akira says, pushing up his glasses, "but we can do better than sleeping in-uniform."

"'We,'" mimics Akechi, pointedly fingering the fabric, and his eyes do that thing they did when Akira would pull a chair beside him at Leblanc five minutes before closing, convince Sojiro to wait a moment and let them talk a while: flicker with a feared, aporetic hope, a light hindered by Akechi's own heart whenever he dares to dream.

"I'm not leaving you alone tonight," Akira says, and he means it sincerely but smirks at the innuendo anyway. It feels familiar and forward and clear, because now they both know the truth of the other but Akira is still flirting, a step back into a routine that neither ever wanted to break.

He slips off his glasses and sets them on the table, sliding into place by his—still, for some reason, and ever stronger—crush.

And...

Akechi snorts. He looks and feels like shit and smells it, too—tailored waist too wide and dark circles under dead eyes—but now he's so empty and so gone he doesn't care, his facade finally free to crumble away when he meets Akira's unmasked gaze.

"You're infuriating." He stands, Akira's clothes in his arms. "I suppose I look trash enough to fit here."

"We'll match," Akira says, and pulls at his own cheek, still tender from the bruises. "Try not to kill me in my sleep."

* * *

A dead man is afforded the luxury of crawling from his grave at noon if he so chooses, and Akira does; by now he's so accustomed to it that even Morgana normally stretches awake closer to school's closing than its start.

When Morgana shakes him the following morning with the urgent, "Akira! He's gone," Akira only rolls to his side and blinks at the sofa for Morgana's benefit, because of course he is. Akira didn't expect to find Akechi Goro, the boy who spent so many years of his life curating a perfect image, dozing softly on the sofa of his enemy well into the day after—presumably—the worst night of his life. Akira barely knew if he'd return from the restroom last night—but he did, shirt tighter at the shoulders than Akechi seemed to like and hugging his torso in a manner Akira found pleasant, and he said "Good night," and curled awkwardly onto the sofa, face to the wall, shivering for the cold attic and unsatisfactory blankets.

Of course Akira was transfixed until the steady rise and fall; it came quick, perhaps from the exhaustion, perhaps from Akechi Goro's budding desperation to succumb to unconsciousness and abandon reality—to sleep and sleep and sleep and wake up on the other side of his life. Either way he was out and Akira was left staring, a renewed hatred of Shido coursing viciously through his blood.

That and something else.

But sometime this morning Akechi got up and he folded the blankets and he left, discarding his phone on top of the pile.

Akira licks his lips and reaches for his own.

* * *

"Let's wait to send the calling card."

The others stare, confident in their leader but wary of his intentions. The webs in which they're entangled are only getting tighter, and, to be honest—Makoto chews her lip—they would rather end this sooner than later now that Akechi has disappeared, leaving behind only his locked phone on airplane mode.

"We can't trust him," Ryuji reminds them, arm stretched to scratch the back of his neck. "Not sayin' he's still the enemy, but he ain't exactly essential."

"His abilities would be useful against Shido," says Akira, hands occupied with spinning Akechi's phone; Futaba has her eye on it even as she types on her laptop.

"I just don't know what to expect," is Ann's input. Across from him in the booth, she's clutching her own phone to her chest, eyes on the charm that dangles there (twin to one of Shiho's). "Like, there's no way he'd go back to his dad, but… I don't know. Can we really rely on him right now?"

"He has more of a right to confront him than I do," Akira points out, and the group succumbs to silence; something about that truth is uncomfortable. Akechi has been so close to his right for so long, so close to their frame of mind, only to be dragged off the way by a single selfish hope and kept there by more than just his arrogance.

Finally, Yusuke says, "We still have until Election Day. What do you think, Morgana?"

Morgana glances at Akira, then back. "Whatever he says, I'm in."

So they wait.

* * *

It's days later when the bell rings past closing and in strides Akechi Goro, decked in a grey hoodie and Akira's pants, a duffel bag swung over his shoulder. At first glance the look doesn't suit him, but maybe the unorthodoxy is actually his demeanor now.

Akira dog-ears his novel and folds it in his lap. "Welcome back."

"Honey, I'm home," Akechi echoes with faint mirth.

"You're back awfully late."

"Yes," Akechi agrees. He's showered but apparently not run a comb through his hair; clean but unruly, he crosses his arms and is teeming with an energy that Akira recognizes but can't place when he says, "I was killing myself."

Akira slips the book onto the counter and hops off his chair, mimicking Akechi's stance. This close he catches a whiff of the fabric softener smell he came to associate with the Ginza line, and then of safer passages in Sae's palace. "Did it work?"

Akechi's smile is reminiscent of the sweet one from TV, but the aftertaste is sour enough to make Akira's chest swell. "For the most part," Akechi says, and sets his bag in the booth to stand closer, lowers his hood in time for Akira to rest his chin in one hand and reach for Akechi's shoulder with the other, a mock Thinker silently snarking that Akechi is still pretty solid.

"Unfortunately," Akechi continues, glancing sideways, "it occurred to me that my _complete_ disappearance would validate him. And that's not something I could allow."

"Careful," says Akira, smirk crooked, and thrilled at Akechi's lack of disapproval, he tugs at the strings of his hoodie. "You're starting to sound like a phantom thief."

In response Akechi only exhales and in that space Akira meets him, a crash he's been craving since the first wired phone call, this their first kiss that knows everything—knows Akechi Goro and knows Kurusu Akira; knows Joker and knows Crow and knows the want for death and for love, knows not forgiveness but does understanding; knows that _I am thou thou art I, I_ am _you and you_ are _me_ , knows that before all that they are two boys with hearts and hands that fit together, even if guided by a strangling red string.

Akira says in a breath between moments, forehead pressed to his other's, "Come with us. Shido is your fight, too."

"Your bullshit forgiveness is beyond measure," murmurs Akechi. "You'll actually get killed some day, you know."

"It's not forgiveness," Akira corrects, because that truth will put Akechi more at ease than incomprehensible absolution. He smirks again, too relieved by Akechi's flirting to hold back. "I did think it was kinda hot that you got off on trying to kill me, though."

But Akechi frowns and steps away. The start of something awful wells in Akira's throat.

"You'll have to excuse me, Joker," he says. "It appears I can no longer use personas."

And Akira recognizes the energy now: it's an echo of his own. It's rebellion and anger and resentment and will. It's frustration—the bars on his heart in the Velvet Room, no matter how hard he tries to complete this cosmic joke of a rehabilitation or break them, laughing at the inevitable futility of it all.

Akira is going to finish this. Akechi…

He narrows his eyes. "Can't? Or won't?"

"It collapsed," Akechi admits. "That room."

"Your Velvet Room?"

"That man was going to kill me, too. Except he knew I would welcome that end, so he didn't. This, it seems, is my punishment." He laughs, then, the same hollow echo from before, his hands balled into fists, and he's trembling like that night and it hurts to hear when he says, "Except—shit, Akira—of course _now_ that I really want this finished and actually know how to do it without fucking up I—I can't—"

Akira takes his hand, determined to coax it open. It works, briefly, but then Akechi grasps Akira's, hard.

"Joker," he says, anger at injustice through gritted teeth, "make a deal with me?"

He will.

"Will you do this for me? I thought I had nowhere to go and you challenged that, but I still can't do shit. Will you change Shido's heart and end his crimes?"

He will.

Akira's entire being trembles with power, a steadfast justice spreading from his shoulder blades like once-folded wings. If Akechi senses anything, he doesn't show it.

"I am really fucking useless."

"Sometimes," admits Akira. He can't hear anything over the rush in his ears; despite it all, he says: "Stay with me. Goro."

Akechi—Goro—stiffens. Then he nods, slowly, the unfamiliar sound of his given name strange but apparently welcome in Akira's voice. "I'll be _your_ problem, then, until it's finished."

Akira can't say he's had worse problems, but he can say, "That's fine."

He pulls him so much closer.


	15. family → bedtime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> director’s cut blackred got married in ~~maui~~ suburbia and adopted twin daughters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic collection but every time i'm extremely self-indulgent it gets faster. boring au where shuake return from date night to...

The misfortune to which they return is this: crumbs in the rear foyer, a thorough rout of the ice cream, Justine awake past bedtime, serenely stalking about in a bodysuit made of toilet paper. She's the first to notice their return, in fact; she swivels mechanically when she spots Goro in the kitchen, says a small, "Oh, Daddy, you're home," her register as deadpan as the costume merits.

Goro blinks, resolving the image into a picture. Then he nudges Ren, who glances back from inspecting what was once their snack stash and huffs from his nose in immediate delight.

"Mummy," Ren decides, "we're home."

To which Goro would deck him if he didn't duck, and Justine breaks into giggles. She clambers to smush herself into Goro's legs, and Ren immediately crouches to her height and strokes her hair. "So you guys had fun? Where's"—he cranes his neck to see past her, into the rest of the house—"Anubis, I'm guessing?"

Their daughter values precision; she thinks for a moment before nodding once and suggesting, "The Duat."

"Right," says Ren, bemused. "Duh." Then he stands, mouthing to Goro, _The what?_

Goro pats his daughter's back, pulling her clingy form ever closer. He guesses, _Basement?_

Once Justine has been unravelled, Ren sighs from two stairs below, "You are so smart," and indeed Goro is, for in the basement/Duat sit an ornamented pharaoh in pajamas and—Medjed, he can only wager, as Futaba is backed into the couch with a white sheet over her entire body, slits only for her glasses to poke through. The fabric has bunched where her hands must be firmly gripping a controller; Caroline, too, is thusly equipped, nestled on the couch with her legs folded beneath her, tongue poking out her mouth in determined concentration.

Ren sneaks around to see who is winning. Justine is in tow, both nodding at the screen with grit teeth. 

It is 11PM. 

Goro clears his throat.

"Oh SHIT you're back," yelps Futaba, decidedly the Cool Aunt™ if not for the controller flying out of her hands in abject fear—and, in Goro's humble opinion, the knowledge that video games were to be turned off and eight-year-olds were to be in bed _a full two hours ago_ pooling to the forefront of her guilty conscience.

"Shit!" Caroline echoes, eyes wide and mouth open in equally malconcealed fear. Then she tries to turn it into an innocent smile with a conspiratorial look at Ren; fortunately they have talked about parental solidarity, and Ren has a good poker face.

Goro folds his arms and says, "Excuse me?"

"Um," Caroline tries. "Hi! We didn't miss you?"

At least she's honest.

Goro points to the stairs: "Bed."

And as they trudge up Ren calls, "Sweet dreams, your lordship!"


	16. bad end → are you now or have you ever been

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is 50% of what chashmish wanted. sorry it is bad

"Ah," Goro realizes, "I'm being haunted."

In the doorway, Amamiya makes no movement. Nor does he speak; what he says Goro only knows somewhere in the back of his mind, the echoing residue of Goro’s subconscious. What he says, Goro doesn’t like.

Goro sets his jaw and closes his eyes, but not for sleep. If this aberration is Goro's, he controls it; if this is a dream, he can blink it away.

When he looks again Amamiya has not gone, unflinching now in that Metaverse mask. Perfectly clear against Goro's myopia.

Always with the schoolboy tricks. Just out of reach of enough.

Goro shifts so he’s closer to sitting and tucks stray hair behind his ear. He’s still in the habit of being polite, it seems, and Joker’s mask does well to hide the wound there. “Might I offer you something?" he tries, like an invitation, or a last rite, or anything else for Joker to come closer or to go away, neither more appealing than the other. "I’m afraid I’ve little practice with guests.”

Show me your true form.

“Haven’t I so done?”

No.

“You don’t remember?” He makes a gun with his left hand and shoots. The mask leaves, or left—he misses the transition—and it’s there, Goro’s mark, and how nice of the coroners to bother cleaning it before he was sent beyond.

Then Amamiya appears or appeared or will appear close enough for Goro to touch his handiwork, but just as his fingers are to meet skin Amamiya bows or bowed or will bow close enough for Goro to kiss it instead.

How about this?

Goro obliges, live human blood flooding into his ears and sensation pooling behind his knees.

This is—

As pathetic as caressing air and just as tangible.

Amamiya is or was or will be in the uniform in which he died, sat on the edge of the bed with glassy eyes and purpled skin. Impatience and revulsion are Goro but he swallows and he demands, "What the fuck do you want."

I sense pathos.

Goro flares and bites his tongue for blood, an old habit, but this is what finally delights his prey and predator, charges the phantom's eyes and opens his mouth and when Goro goes forward now he can feel it: Joker is or was or will be smirking or could have been or should be. He has no temperature or breath or pulse but still he laughs, high and clear, and then shoots a gun to Goro's temple, announcing eiha, you're mine, a curse for his murderer, to Goro with his weak knees.

No, he is neither _weak_ nor sad nor pitiable he is special _he_ is alive he has won he has won he has won. What do you _want_ , just _die_ already, why for Amamiya Ren is it never ever _enough_?

Calm down, give it up, this is what reality is.

Shut up shut up shut _up_!

Amamiya is gone. Or he was, or he had been.

Goro can't sleep.


	17. post-canon → whimper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt: "Write an instruction on how to make Akechi cry."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for shuake hell server. i'm a vampire now.

Oh,  _ Goro  _ is dramatic - but here's Ren, so rare to cry and whimpering. He neither tosses nor turns, nor stirs, only trembles, so pathetic and raw and vulnerable.

He did this. 

Collecting Ren in his arms and smoothing his hair and muttering that it's okay sometimes feels sick.

But he does it. He—Oh. 

It still surprises Goro that he can cry again. He thought he'd shut that part off for good, but if he touches his cheek now he's sure it'll be cold and wet. Silent aches now, he recognizes them, and sniffs, so quiet because that was his survival so long ago.

Ren did  _ this_. 

(Please stop crying. I'll do anything, just—)

"You okay?" Ren says like a draft, voice soft but cracking and laced with sleep. He rubs at his own dry, dry eyes before cupping Goro's face with such a frown. "Hey, were you…"

Goro swallows, shakes his head  _ no. _

Only, then he barrels into Ren's chest and nodsnodsnods _yespleaseimsogladyouwokeup_.


	18. anime → dark stun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spoilers for "dark sun"

Goro shoots his double. Then he shoots a button, tosses a chess piece at Joker, and, while the others are distracted trying to figure out what the hell he's done, skids across the hall before the barrier settles in place.

Pointless plastic gun noises resound against the wall.

"...Close one," notes Joker.

Goro sneers, refuses his hand, and crawls up from his knees. "Let's do this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's that fucking easy


	19. post-canon → you give love a bot name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> goro vs the grid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ????????/

Goro refuses to speak again until they're a safe distance from Haru's block.

"Oh,  _ Alexa _ ," he says, affecting his voice so Splenda sweet, "won't you ask  _ Geneva  _ to turn the oven down? Don't want the veal too roasted for our guest's delicate palates, you see? Oh, but did I say that right? Siri, is it 'palates' or 'pilates'? I'm just  _ so overwhelmed  _ with all this work here… Cortana, won't you be a dear and suck my dick?" 

Ren rubs his back supportively. "Ssh. It's okay, we're safe here."

"Fucking rich people," Goro grumbles. "Can't stop at firing workers to hire robots. Have to surrender all their colleagues' info to the fucking botnet."

"What is humanity now but a collective unconsciousness we call the internet," provides Ren. 

His phone takes the opportunity to chirp, " _ In 300 feet, take a left _ ."

"Left here," Ren dictates.

Goro obliges, mutters, "I'd throw my phone away if not for you."

"I appreciate it. Your selfies and the 'is typing' dot-dot-dots are my source of life."

"Ellipses," says Goro.

"Right now?" Ren asks, squeezing Goro's hand. "Babe, I don't got enough for a ring."

To which Goro sighs and pinches his nose because that was too much of a reach even for Ren, but Ren shrugs and smiles and pulls him into the dark of the park. They explore by phone light until their batteries run out, and then they just explore, and Ren says, "Y'know, my parents used to make me spend summer break at my grandma's farm. It sucked, complete dead zone."

Goro laughs, suddenly. "It's odd; I can't imagine you anywhere outside a city."

"Then don't imagine," Ren says. "Let's elope to Grandma's farm." When Goro doesn't reply, he adds, "I think one of the goats is ordained."

Then Goro swats him, only then he pulls him closer and kisses him, says, "I think I will take you up on that offer, Ren."

Ren asks, "Even the goat?"

"Perhaps without the marriage."

"I can download Miku—"


End file.
